Tag Archives: assad

What are you meant to think of Syria and President Assad when the mainstream media constantly supplies reports and interviews and content that explicitly states that Assad “bombs his own people” that “Assad must go” and that “Assad is using chemical weapons”?

You would be forgiven for thinking that the US, UK and Western powers are doing the world a huge favour and helping the people of the Middle East. You would also be forgiven for thinking that Russia and Syria’s other allies are just as guilty and are a threat to the world.

It should be made clear that Russia has its own agenda in the region largely for Geopolitical reasons and it should be made clear that Assad has been guilty of terrible indiscriminate attacks against people in Syria. What isn’t made clear though is the other side of the story. You know full well there are two sides to every story and it’s not until you seek to learn of the other side that you could ever hope to make an informed decision.

This post is a series of videos that will make you think again about what you see and hear every day on your TV screens and radios. We will provide an explanation to each video.

Firstly, if you missed it, below is the compilation, an overview.

UNHCR: The Video below alone is telling. Presented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees you would think they know more than most about how the Syrians see their home country. With what we hear in the mainstream press you might be expecting them to, yes, say they want to go home, but somewhere in there you might expect them to at least be neutral on how good life was back in Syria. What they say presents a different picture to the one painted on TV. That of a despotic leader killing his own people and being too authoritarian. What happened to their uprising?

What about a few years prior to the uprising? How did these Syrian women speak of their home country and the way of life there?

Just a year after the outbreak of war these two Syrian women seem to know exactly what is going on and why. The girl on the right is known as ‘Syrian Girl’ and has repeatedly commented on the conflict. Her YouTube videos are extensive.

By and large the people conducting the uprising at the beggining were likely the various sects of Sunni Islam. They certainly would not have been Alawite. The Syria conflict in many ways is a battle of ideologies. You just have to decide if you would rather Assad held it together or allow extemists like Al Nusra to take over. Holding any kind of extreme view in Syria is likely frowned upon as Assad tries to run a secular society so you would think in some ways the West would have liked to have had Assad as an ally, not an enemy. A few years ago that was essentially true as Tony Blair almost knighted Assad with a recommendation to the Queen.

The next couple of videos from Vox and Le Monde explain how the Syrian crisis came about. We actually don’t agree with everything said in these videos but it does highlight the role of Western and indeed Eastern powers in the war and what stake they have in Syria. One of the key aspects to take away from the videos is how the popular uprising was infiltrated by rebels from across the Middle East. Well, rebels is what the West has called them and it’s what you have been led to believe they are. The truth is the fact that all of these groups are in any other scenario, terrorists, and the US and others have been arming them and training them, by their own admission.

In fact imagine the scenario. There you are, President of Syria, you have ruled over a peaceful nation for many years. A rarity in that you have a secular nation. One of the last remaining secular countries in the region surrounded by extremists and ideologies from all sides of the Muslim faith. An uprising could lead to what happened in Libya, Afghanistan and of course Iraq and currently Yemen. Would you not do everything in your power to suppress a destabilising uprising? This is not to defend Assad, more to provide reasoning for his actions. If you doubt the veracity of that explanation just turn on your TV or open a newspaper and ask yourself.. are Iraqis and Libyans currently better off without their leaders Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gadaffi respectively?

It may be that you don’t believe that some of these rebel groups are all that bad. Al Nusra a proscribed terror group and the Syrian network for Al Qaeda are currently fighting in Syria. Recently they changed their name to the JFS and dropped some of their public facing extreme ideologies to help Unite the varying groups in Syria against Assad, but the US in particular are concerned that the JFS are just Al Nusra in all but name. They are worried about any ramifications and rightly so when you consider that the last time a leader of a Middle Eastern country fell it became a hell hole of extremism.

With what we are seeing on our screens right now it would be pertinent to address the problem of overkill or the targeting of civilians as told by the West. We have already seen one of two videos express why this is happening including the video with ‘Syrian Girl‘. Human shields. The rebels claim they are the saviours of the people, revolutionaries even yet they hide in civilian held areas inviting fire from government forces. If Assad were to play tactfully and wait it out, the war would be over by next week in favour of the rebels, no, terrorists, and they do not play by the same rules. Here is where the questionable aspect of Assad comes into play. Collateral damage. It’s never right of course but what choice does he have? Target the rebels and risk the condemnation of the West or allow the rebels to succeed and over run the country. It’s not a good choice to have but one he would have to make, no matter how unpalatable.

Reverent Michael Nazir, Bishop of Rochdale having visited Syria understands this point and speaks in the following video. He raises the question of how Syria could possibly have chemical weapons when the US was meant to have confiscated Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile just last year.

The United States Peace Council sent representatives to Syria to investigate feeling on the ground. The video is long but well worth the listen during some down time.

US senator Richard Black also has some opinions on his experiences surrounding Syria.(warning: long video)

This is just the tip of the Iceberg and doesn’t begin to delve even deeper into the crisis. One allegation that many reading this will find too unpalatable to read is that the White Helmets, the humanitarians on the ground are not entirely who they say they are and that’s another blog post all together.

Like this:

All roads lead here. There are growing signs that a ground offensive in Syria is very near and the ground work to ensure the public is on-side is being laid in the media.

Today Sky News released a report that is written in a way unlike anything before it. Consider that the media has always shown Syria and its leader Assad in a negative light, the instigator, the one that must go above all else, the dictator that massacres his own people.

The report states: “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 100 rebel fighters have been killed in the government offensive launched (on Aleppo) on Monday.”

“More than 60 regime troops have also died in the operation, which has been backed by Russian airstrikes.

“..In the footage, fighters and residents waved the Syrian and Hezbollah flags, and some chanted pro-regime slogans, including “God, Syria, Bashar and nothing else,” in reference to Syrian president Bashar al Assad.”

“The two villages had been under attack by rebels since 2012 and reaching them has been a goal of the government, which has also sought to cut off key rebel supply routes into Aleppo.”

The report went to to talk of the Syrian Army in a positive light which clearly unusual. There is no suggestion that the reports of the crowds cheering their liberation are false. The article does not even try to refute this.

(It should be noted that we first saw this article around 14.00 hours today near to the time this article was released. Since then the article has been updated at around 16.00 hours and it does appear to have been watered down somewhat in its original positivity towards Assad. However without visual proof of this it is hard for us to show you or prove this, all the same the article is still largely positive with the exception of a few seemingly added ‘comments’ from Turkey and the U.S.)

The question initially arose “why would mainstream media begin reporting on Assad in a positive light?”

Had America and its allies decided that backing Assad now will bring an end to the refugee crisis? Will it bring an end to the war far more quickly? It would, but then what’s in it for the US and its allies? After more than a year of arming and backing the rebels it would look odd now to start backing Assad. So how would you start supporting the regime in Syria without losing face?

Cue stories in the mainstream media of Syrian army success stories. Show them as liberators, then when the West starts backing the Syrian army the public will support the move and forget all about siding with the Rebels.

But then something else came to light on reading further news coverage today. All signs point to a ground invasion, yes it’s been suggested for a while but this may be the closest we have come to it being a reality. The public have to be on-side with a ground offensive. Goverenments can’t afford for their people to second guess a ground invasion, after all certainly with the UK government it’s what people had been calling for instead of air strikes. David Cameron though had said that he would not send troops into Syria, that it would be left to regional forces. Well, he said Rebel forces but I think even he now recognises that it’s not going to happen with the collapse of the peace talks in Geneva. Perhaps a ground offensive by Western troops will be the only option but how to get around the public concern?

Build a narrative. Build a picture that actually shows the West supporting Assad in his fight against the rebels and ISIL forces.

The heat has been turned up to resolve the crisis in Syria with the news today that Libya is fast becoming a recruiting ground for ISIL forces with estimated insurgents on the rise. Libya in case you hadn’t noticed has gone backwards in recent days and the fears are that there will after all be no peaceful solution to Libya.

It is unclear though whether Turkey would be fighting against ISIL, Rebel forces the Syrian Army or Kurdish forces or a mix of all of them. Turkey is said to be outraged that the Syrian Army have displaced more Syrians from Aleppo today of which 70,000 are thought to be headed towards the Turkish border. Turkey though has been accused of allowing ISIL fighters safe passage via the key supply line between it and Aleppo, the very town that was liberated by the Syrian Army today.

So what is Turkeys intention? Russia appears concerned.

Of course Turkey is meant to be within NATO and part of the coalition forces, is Turkey about to go off script perhaps with the help of Saudi Arabia? Will the ground offensive be in the name of freeing towns from ISIL and in the process getting Russia on board?

Or has a secret deal already been prepared in that the coalition will help liberate Syria from Rebel forces in exchange for Assad stepping down afterwards. This would allow all parties to save their reputations and the coalition getting exactly what they wanted, regime change.

There are so many variables it is hard to pin point exactly how this will pan out but one thing is fairly certain, the ground offensive is very near and the narrative in the press has now changed.

The report via the BBC at the link below gives details on civilians starving and besieged by various groups in various locations in Syria.
In one city around 200,000 are besieged by ISIS and in various other towns thousands of civilians are held by Al Nusra. In one other city another 200,000 are besieged by government forces which is a stronghold for rebel groups.

Whilst the region waits for more peace talks the fighting continues. The Western backed rebels hold onto civilian cities which is helping to encourage the Syrian army to keep the cities besieged.

It would be easy to condemn the Syrian government for allowing the people to starve and no doubt they are culpable in many ways, we must though suspect that the rebel groups would benefit from ensuring no aid got through in any case. All the whilst people suffer and it’s the Syrian army doing the attacking, the more sympathy the rebels will gain.

There has been anecdotal evidence to suggest that the rebels have in some cases used civilians as human shields. It wouldn’t be a great leap to imagine this may indeed be happening.

What is Assad to do? Leader of the nation and faced with rebel groups attacking his forces from within the civilian population. Whilst there is no doubt that Assad could and should do more to help the civilians and should answer for any war crimes that may have been committed it’s also important to realise that he can’t just ‘leave it’ and allow the rebels free reign. Would any other president of any other nation? Assad also knows that these rebels are Western backed. It’s an invasion by any other name.

This is why it’s important to leave revolutions and uprisings to the people of individual nations. Foreign interference muddies the waters and no longer makes it about revolution but instead makes it something far more sinister.

This is by no means a defence of Assad but more of a way to ask you to not take what the media says at face value.

Anyone who has seen the film ‘Bitter Lake’ will contest to the reality that what we are seeing is a narrative, again, of plain and simple ‘good vs bad’ just like in Aghanistan when the complexity of the situation makes it anything but ‘good Vs bad’.

Like this:

Have our military actions abroad made the UK or America any safer today? How about France? Are the French safe now?

If the West had not spent the past year and a half messing around in Syria, illegally arming and backing moderate terrorists…Sorry… Rebels.. in an attempt to overthrow the Assad regime then maybe, just maybe ISIS wouldn’t have been able to carry out its atrocity in Paris last night.

In other news this morning that you may have missed members of the Afghanistan army are beginning to defect to the Taliban taking their weapons with them. Dozens have already done so. You can read the story here. The reason for entering Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack on America was allegedly due to The Taliban providing refuge to Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.

Years later many British and American troops have lost their lives in “the war on terror” along with countless civilians and Afghan forces. Now it seems it may all be for nothing.

Back on 20th October the Taliban took back a stronghold from the British in Helmund as reported here with the headline “security unravels”

Perhaps though this will suit the Americans and the British. As no progress has been made in Syria and the West is losing face to the Russian and Kurdish forces perhaps their attention will be drawn to Afghanistan and they will use that as their get out (of Syria) clause and if that happens then the West will be engaged on four fronts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, not to mention our intervention in Libya.

It’s sometimes easy to forget the incredible mess that the Middle Easy is in.

Take the Kurdish forces for example, having recently taken back a town in Syria from ISIS they are clearly intent on ridding the region of ISIS yet Turkey is targeting the Kurds in more ways than one, including previousley using American weapons on the Kurds which were originally provided to them to fight ISIS.

Yet Turkey are the allies of the West.

Think about that whole scenario for a moment. Our allies are targeting other allies using weapons provided by other allies.

Then of course you have the issues surrounding the terrorists..Oops there we go again…rebels..in Syria fighting Assad. The US admitted they have funded the rebels to the tune of $500Million to take on Assad and as we have already touched upon, this has allowed ISIS to gain strength, uninpeded for more than a year. Yet the moment Russia stepped in, at the legal request of the elected Syrian president and directly took on ISIS, the West announced that Russia was in fact “aggressive” that they have made Syria “unsafe” (because the countless countries already there illegally along with the rebels, ISIS and Assad’s own troops weren’t already making the place ‘unsafe’) and that Russia was “the single greatest threat” to the U.S.

Not ISIS then?

Of course the US so far have refused to work with Russia to defeat ISIS as they are incensed that they are also supporting the elected ruler of the country to remain in power.

Peace talks are ongoing.. without President Assad.. and Saudi Arabia appear to be calling some of the shots by suggesting that for there to be peace Assad must go and Iran must withdraw from Syria (Iran is providing support to Assad also).

Saudi Arabia. That bastion of human rights. The same Saudi Arabia that recently was heading up the Human Right Council thanks to the backing of David Cameron who admitted on air that the reason for “the deal” was because Saudi Arabia provides “valuable intelligence” for our security. Shame they didn’t see Paris coming.

Of course this doesn’t touch on Saudi Arabia’s export of terrorism. Wahabbism. The origins of ISIS.

If there is one thing that is very apparent it’s this; The world is far more unsafe now that Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Gaddafi (and soon Assad?) have been dispatched from their seats of power. The void they have left has not only given rise to ISIS but also paved the way for last nights terror attack in Paris.

You can bet your last dime or penny on one thing, the war hawks will right now be deciding on what their next move will be. Whatever decision they make, it won’t be made listening to the public.

1 Million people marching against the Iraq war only to be ignored was proof of that.

Our advice for what it’s worth? If you can’t bring yourselves to join with Russia and the Kurds and destroy ISIS and prevent another possible terror attack on a major Western City then get out of the Middle East, withdraw all troops before we make yet another catatsrophic mistake.

Every action the West has done, especially over the past 15-20 years has led to this moment. There can be no doubt. Few though will admit it, instead they want nothing but war and that’s exactly where our leaders want to take us at our peril.

The one thing we haven’t tried over the past 15-20 years is keeping our noses out.

On a final note for those that may say 9/11 occurred when “we hadn’t done anything to them”. The interference of Middle Eastern politics goes back a long time, to the Afghan War when the British and Russians forst fought for control of the rebel groups of the time by providing them weapons. Sound familiar? Finally the first Iraq War in the mid 1990’s. Anyone with a good memory will recall what a mess we left Iraq in at the time. The people suffered as a result. We bred terrorists.

There is little doubt that religious fundamentalism does play its part, but what you don’t do is feed that fundamentalism.

Nothing we have done for the past 15-20 years+ has worked. It has not achieved anything of any benefit to anyone.

How long before we wake up to the mess our own governments have created?

France was recently declared in many quarters as the ‘New Britain’ to America. The ‘right hand’ country to the U.S.

Dr Jonathan Eyal is the International Director and International Studies Director at RUSI (Royal United Services Institute, an Independent think tank engaged in cutting edge defence and security research). He is Oxford educated to masters degree (with distinction) in International Law and Relations and he Previously advised the government on the former Yugoslavia.

Now you know who he is, we can now begin our thought process.

Dr Jonathan Eyal said in an article yesterday (22/09/15) in the Telegraph (here) that Russia’s arrival in Syria was to send a signal to the West as the Russian SU-27 jets have ‘no military use against ISIL’ as neither ISIL nor the rebels possess any airpower.

‘The SU-27 jets…have no military use against ISIL’

We wondered if there was a technical reason for that, so we dug around to see what the main use for a SU-27 jet would be, and primarily it appears the Jet is used in an Air Superiority role and a ‘multiroll’.

Russian SU-27, Air superiority and Multiroll

We know that the US are flying Bombing missions in Syria so we wondered; ‘What planes were the US using and did they have a different purpose away from having an air superiority role and whom exactly were they targeting?’.

Turns out that the U.S. are using F-16 fighter jets and they have exactly the same roles as the Russian SU-27’s. The US is also ‘officially’ targeting ISIL and has no current policy to attack Assad forces.

Via RT news: US planes begin bombing runs on ISIS in Syria

From the same RT article, Confirmation of bombing runs on ISIL in Syria by F-16’sU.S F-16, Air superiority and Multiroll just like Russian SU-27

One article at the beginning of August even confirms that the U.S. is not targeting Assad forces

LA Times article: No ‘push’ on assad. The official line still to this day. (Article here)

So, here is the Question. If the Russian SU-27 jets have ‘no military use against ISIL‘… Then what is the US doing with jets that by our reckoning are pretty much the same?

If Dr.Eyal is correct then all the planes involved now must be useless in the fight against ISIS and if that’s the case then the only other use they could have is an Air Superiority role and the only people that allegedly have planes in Syria to be superior against are….? President Assad’s forces.

Seeing as ISIS won’t be standing in the middle of the road screaming ‘come and get me’ at the drones flying about the place, you have to think… there is no way the US and in turn the British (embedded into Allied forces), are going after ISIS now.

Most of you reading this will already know of or believe this to be the case anyway but for the general populous who don’t always like to view things from this angle it is at least one way of connecting the dots.

The West has indeed declared an interest in wanting to get rid of Assad, that’s no secret, but we are not meant to have started yet. Going after Assad now is undemocratic, wrong and deceitful to the respective western populations.

Dr Eyal is surely too clever to make a mistake because its his comment about the Russian fighter jets that has raised eyebrows here.

He works closely with the UK government and you have to ask if this kind of comment in light of Russian forces now being in Syria, is just another way of making Russia look bad, because if Russia does react then the West is going to need every excuse in the book to retaliate. Repeating a lie that Russian Jets were only there to protect Assad against the West and not, after all, to tackle ISIS, would go some way in convincing the general public.

Right now there is no will for a war amongst the people. Especially one of the magnitude that would involve Russia.